Pre-show interview with The Blinders

A couple of hours before their headline show at Bodega, I sat down with Matty, Charlie and Thomas, better known as the alternative political-punk band The Blinders.

Nottingham marked a quarter of the way through their UK tour and the three were finding it great so far, having played in Birmingham the night before at The Castle and Falcon which sold out. The three really enjoyed playing Manchester and were excited to play in Nottingham having only played a couple of times before, one of which was at The Maze with a very small audience.

This tour has gone a lot better than the last one, both for the music and the personal aspect. They are selling out venues and attracting larger crowds of people who have never heard them before, but also getting people pushing to the front to scream their songs back to them which they agree is amazing. Off the stage though, they aren’t drinking so much after the shows and chill out by playing x-box in their tour van which Thomas was very excited about. Thomas said they are definitely a band made for touring and although they enjoy times at home, it only takes a few days before they want to be out on the road again.

After the recent release of their debut album ‘Columbia’, they were pleased and surprised by how well people reacted to it. They were especially pleased with the reception that the vinyl edition got. However, most of the songs on the album were written three or four years ago during The Blinders early days and so Thomas admitted it was nice to finally get the album released so that they can close that chapter of the bands history and move on towards different things.

They are now starting to work on album two and said that although it won’t be something completely different to ‘Columbia’ (which they would prefer to do), it’s definitely going to bring a change of sound. They have naturally developed throughout their time as a band and have been inspired by a lot of the places they have played on their various shows around the UK. Thomas said that putting on the make up is beginning to feel like hard work, but he enjoys it when he’s on stage and in character, it just won’t be something that is brought to tours after this one. Matty said it’s been nice to write new music after all this time and it’s something “fresh” for the band.

As well as a second album, the three want to play a European tour next year including places such as Germany, Holland and Paris. Thomas said his favourite city in the world is Paris and if he could even spend one night there let alone then play to crowds would be amazing. Matty has been before with his friend and an acoustic guitar and love the experience. He said that fans abroad are generally politer and respect artists more than over here, they don’t talk during performances and clap after every song. He said it’s not the same over here but “what can you do hey?”

It’s going to be interesting to see where the future takes The Blinders, but for now, I left them to continue to prepare for their show. You can have a read of how it went later today here.